Labour pledges to cover Brexit budget losses

The Labour Party will make up any funding shortfalls for deprived regions of the U.K. caused by Brexit until “into the 2020s and beyond,” it was announced at the party’s conference in Liverpool on Monday.

Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, said the multi-billion-pound commitment would be a “central plank” of the party’s election manifesto. EU structural funding to the U.K. from 2014-2020 is worth around £10 billion.

“The communities who stand to lose out most from Brexit must be looked after first,” she told delegates.

“Without long-term certainty over funding, our most deprived regions and communities cannot plan ahead. They cannot attract other investment. They cannot make progress,” Thornberry said. “We can guarantee that a future Labour government will make up any shortfall in structural funding into the 2020s and beyond.”

The Conservative government has said it will guarantee EU-funded projects signed before November’s Autumn Statement on government spending. It has also said that agricultural funding now provided by the EU will continue until 2020.

But Thornberry said Theresa May’s government wasn’t doing enough, saying its offer was “hedged in conditions” and claiming it had “said nothing” about what happens after 2020.

Thornberry used her speech on the first day of the Labour conference to accuse the government of having “no plan” for Brexit.

“We cannot turn the clock back and run the Brexit vote again. We have been given our instructions by the British people and we must act on them,” she said, and promised Labour would “stand up” for EU migrants, British businesses and workers’ rights.

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Maria Valentina Umer

I am a cretin.

Posted on 9/26/16 | 4:48 PM CET

FierEuropeen

Me to!

Posted on 9/27/16 | 4:43 PM CET

Maria Valentina Umer

Once again, the troll who is so cowardly to steal identities (Post of 9/27/16, 4:48 PM) and write in their names with abusive comments denotes the state of the English society. I estimate this troll is an angry young man, the victim of his own country´s failed policies. Poor guy!